Karen Leigh King is an American academic working in the field of early Christianity

Early Christianity

Early Christianity is generally considered as Christianity before 325. The New Testament's Book of Acts and Epistle to the Galatians records that the first Christian community was centered in Jerusalem and its leaders included James, Peter and John....

 and Gnosticism

Gnosticism

Gnosticism is a scholarly term for a set of religious beliefs and spiritual practices common to early Christianity, Hellenistic Judaism, Greco-Roman mystery religions, Zoroastrianism , and Neoplatonism.A common characteristic of some of these groups was the teaching that the realisation of Gnosis...

. She had been Winn Professor of Ecclesiastical History at Harvard Divinity School

Harvard Divinity School

Harvard Divinity School is one of the constituent schools of Harvard University, located in Cambridge, Massachusetts, in the United States. The School's mission is to train and educate its students either in the academic study of religion, or for the practice of a religious ministry or other public...

, from 1998 - 2008; in October 2009, she succeeded Harvey Cox

Harvey Cox

Harvey Gallagher Cox, Jr. is one of the preeminent theologians in the United States and served as Hollis Research Professor of Divinity at the Harvard Divinity School, until his retirement in October 2009...

 to become the first woman appointed to the Hollis Chair

Hollis Chair

The Hollis Chair may refer to one of several Chairs established at Harvard College:* Hollis Chair of Divinity* Hollis Chair of Mathematics and Natural Philosophy...

, the oldest endowed chair in the United States (1721). She was described by Newsweek

Newsweek

Newsweek is an American weekly news magazine published in New York City. It is distributed throughout the United States and internationally. It is the second-largest news weekly magazine in the U.S., having trailed Time in circulation and advertising revenue for most of its existence...

as "an authority on women's roles in the early church." From 1984 to 1997, she was professor of religious studies at Occidental College

Occidental College

Occidental College is a private, coeducational liberal arts college located in the Eagle Rock neighborhood of Los Angeles, California. Founded in 1887, Occidental College, or "Oxy" as it is called by students and alumni, is one of the oldest liberal arts colleges on the West Coast...

.

Her books include The Secret Revelation of John, The Gospel of Mary of Magdala: Jesus and the First Woman Apostle , What Is Gnosticism?, Images of the Feminine in Gnosticism (Studies in Antiquity & Christianity), and Revelation of the Unknowable God: With Text, Translation, and Notes to Nhc Xi, 3 Allogenes King co-authored Reading Judas: The Gospel of Judas and the Shaping of Christianity with Elaine Pagels

Elaine Pagels

Elaine Pagels, née Hiesey , is the Harrington Spear Paine Professor of Religion at Princeton University. The recipient of a MacArthur Fellowship, she is best known for her studies and writing on the Gnostic Gospels...

, and is the co-editor of Women and Goddess Traditions: In Antiquity and Today (Studies in Antiquity and Christianity).

Works

• Allogenes
  Allogenes
  Allogenes is a Sethian Gnostic text from the New Testament apocrypha. The main surviving copies come from the Nag Hammadi library, though there are many missing lines. A small fragment also survives in the more recently discovered Codex Tchacos, which may help in filling the gaps.The text concerns...
  
  , a critical edition (1984)
• Gnostic studies: Revelation of the Unknowable God (1995)
• What is Gnosticism? (2003)
• The Gospel of Mary of Magdala (2003)

External links

• Official home page